G20 backs Europe's overhaul to fight crisis

June 20, 2012|Jeff Mason and Noah Barkin | Reuters

(EDGARD GARRIDO, REUTERS)

LOS CABOS, Mexico (Reuters) - Europe won support from world leaders on Tuesday for an ambitious but slow-moving overhaul of the euro zone, even as pressure built in financial markets for quicker solutions to its debt crisis that threatens the world economy.

Europe told a Group of 20 summit it intends to work on concrete steps to integrate its banking sectors, a major step long pressed by the United States and other nations to break the cycle of debt-laden countries bailing out their troubled banks which only pushes governments ever deeper into debt.

U.S. President Barack Obama said the sense of urgency amongst European leaders was clear and they knew what steps were needed to "break the fever" of an escalating debt crisis.

"None of them are going to be a silver bullet that solves this thing entirely ... in the next week or two weeks or two months, but each step points to the fact that Europe is moving towards further integration rather than break-up," Obama told reporters at the end of the two-day summit in a Pacific resort.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said a strengthened framework for a euro-wide fiscal and banking union to underpin the common currency would help restore Europe's economic growth and lower painfully high borrowing costs for indebted countries.

International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde hailed the progress saying "the seeds of a pan-European recovery plan were planted."

"It doesn't matter if it takes a long time, it has got to be done well," she said, adding that immediate measures and longer-term ones must be pursued in parallel.

G20 leaders now await a European Union summit next week where European officials say they will launch the long process of deeper integration, starting with a push for banking union, with an aim of finalizing a broad plan by December.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a critic of Europe's progress to date, said it was now getting to the root of its debt crisis.

"What will be important, what we'll be watching for next week and going forward will be the concerted, coordinated action that will actually make these things happen," Harper said.

Financial markets have yet to be convinced about the chances of agreement. Germany has resisted taking on euro-wide financial risks if its citizens have to foot too much of the bill, while others, such as France and Italy, want to move more quickly.

Although the danger of Greece crashing out of the euro zone eased after weekend elections, risks are mounting that Spain, the euro zone's fourth-largest economy, will need a full-blown international rescue as its longer-term debt yields hover above 7 percent, a level that has forced other euro countries to seek bailouts.

The tensions over the world economy and the round-the-clock discussions contrasted with the laid-back atmosphere of Los Cabos, a beach resort at the tip of Mexico's Baja California. The summit declaration was drafted at a hotel next to the adults-only, clothes-optional Desire Resort And Spa.

TIMELINE AND PATH AHEAD

G20 leaders found common ground that Europe, the world's richest region, must intensify its immediate efforts to stabilize indebted euro-zone countries while laying out a clear plan for building financial, fiscal and political union as the path to save monetary union.

"The Los Cabos G20 delivered more commitments than expected. The Europeans upped the ante and publicly committed to institutional upgrade for the banking system and fiscal situation of the EU," said Yves Tiberghien, political science professor at the University of British Columbia.

Greece, Ireland and Portugal, overwhelmed by debt, have resorted to international bailouts and the EU last week promised funds for Spain's banking system. But investors see these as stop-gap measures until Europe commits to deep budgetary and political integration, sharing risk at the European level.

This would require euro-zone nations to give up more sovereignty and share economic costs, steps that EU leaders say will take time among the 17 democracies that share the currency, especially for Germany which would foot the largest bill.